In such a benign setting, the opportunities for pied pipers to lead Germany astray were decidedly on the low side, and so democracy could sink strong roots in a soil once tread by Junkers and F ü hrers.

This production, under the direction of Guy Hamilton, pulled together a veritable international air force of authentic airplanes in flying condition—British Spitfires and Hurricanes versus German Messerschmitt 109s, Heinkel 111s and Junkers 52s.

The mansions of the Junkers that anchored this world—and this worldview—seemed frozen in a pre-industrial age, on occasion boasting moldering grandeur and aristocratic eccentricity on an English scale—Carol Lehndorff, owner between the wars of an ancestral pile that dominated Steinort now Sztynort, Poland rejoiced in alcohol, rejected vegetables and "when alone . . . lived in two rooms on the warm south side of the house, contemplating his collection of Prussian coins."